ELKO, Minn. — The last 48 hours have been a whirlwind for Gleason, Wisconsin’s Justin Mondeik. He made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut last Thursday night in Thunder Valley at Bristol Motor Speedway, then traveled to Elko, Minn. to win the Thunderstruck 93 ASA Midwest Tour event.
“It’s been crazy,” Mondeik said with a smile about his last couple of days. “By the time I got back to the hotel and showered it was 12:30, then we had to leave the hotel for the airport at 3:30 a.m. It’s been pretty wide open for me, but you can definitely run on less sleep when you are winning.”
Mondeik started sixth and got himself up to the runner-up position by lap 27, looking to chase down leader Levon Van Der Geest.
Van Der Geest, a Kulwicki Driver Development Program finalist, got to the front early and showed its muscle in the early going. But Mondeik was patiently closing in on Van Der Geest getting to his rear bumper on lap 65.
As the two young drivers, worked their way around lap traffic, Mondeik was patiently waiting for the right opportunity to make his pass for the lead.
On lap 76, Mondeik went to the outside of Van Der Geest in turns three and four to challenge for the top spot. A lap later, Mondeik would complete the pass and not give it up for the rest of the night.
After a 10-minute break on lap 93, in honor of former Elko Speedway champion Dan Ryan, who lost his battle with ALS in 2009, Mondeik and Van Der Geest led the field back to the green for the final 32-lap shootout.
Mondeik would get the lead and pull out to about a second lead. Van Der Geest was hoping to make a late charge but lap traffic curtailed that idea.
Behind him, multiple-time Elko Speedway champion Donny Reuvers surprised many as he made a late run in the final five laps going from sixth to finishing third when the checkered flag waved in the air.
Mondeik would go on a 1.349-second victory over Van Der Geest.
“It feels good to get our second Midwest Tour win this year, and it feels good to get a Midwest Tour win other than at State Park Speedway,” Mondeik said with a chuckle as his previous two ASAMT victories came at the Rib Mountain, Wisc. facility. “We just had a real good car in the feature. Practice we were decent and we threw some stuff at for the second session. I wasn’t in a good mood in the trailer, but Toby Nuttleman and I worked really hard at it and the rest is history.”
Van Der Geest was hoping for his first ASAMT victory but was satisfied with a second-place finish as he looked towards a bigger picture.
“Our biggest goal all season is the ASA Midwest Tour points championship so this helps a lot closing up that gap,” Van Der Geest said as he finished four spots ahead of current ASAMT points leader Gabe Sommers with one race to go in the 2024 season. “It is going to make it real tight going into Oktoberfest, so it is going to be real exciting to see how the season wraps up. Hopefully, we can have a good weekend at La Crosse in a couple of weeks.”
Reuvers also struggled to find the right setup leading up to the main event but found something to get another podium finish.
“That was a workout I tell ya,” Reuvers said. “We worked really hard on it all day and it didn’t work good in practice and qualifying and we made some big changes for the feature and you know it worked. I wish the race would have been a little bit longer. Those guys were out far enough and I don’t know if we had anything for them or not. But, at least, it was fun to get up to third.”
Jacob Goede, who won an Elko Speedway late model feature earlier in the night, finished fourth with Ty Fredrickson finishing fifth in his super late model debut at his home track.
Sommers finished sixth creating a very close battle leading into the Oktoberfest 200 on Sunday, Oct. 6 as part of the 55th Annual Oktoberfest Race Weekend at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway in West Salem, Wisc.
Goede posted a fast time of 13.915 seconds in qualifying beating out Billy Mohn by 0.005 seconds.